Next game is all that matters

10 August 2012

Gordon Sorfleet

Skipper Steven Schumacher on the loss of the manager and looking forward to Middlesbrough

“It’s another strange week in the life of Bury Football Club, though you could say it’s not strange anymore because we are getting used to it, with all the things that go on around here – nothing surprises us anymore.

My reaction to this week’s events is that of a little disappointment in that we’ve lost our manager, the timing of it isn’t that great – again, but there’s never a good time to lose your manager. A good time to lose your manager is when things are going bad, but things have been going ok here. It’s disappointing that we’ve lost him, but the show must go on and we will be fine.

I’d heard the rumours on Friday and over the weekend and it all became real on Tuesday morning when Richie came in and told us all that it was true and he was off to Crawley. With his family being down there, it was his main reason for taking the job. We all know how hard it must be, I’m a dad myself and I know it would be hard to be away from my daughter for so long. Sometimes he would go for weeks and weeks without seeing his family. There were times last year that you could see it was getting to him. He’s been given this opportunity and I think he had to take it, you can’t blame him.

Richie Barker is honest and down to earth. He tells it how it is, he’s a top man. I got on with him really well, even before he got the job. I liked him from the minute I met him and he was a good manager to work for.

When Alan and Brassy left, we told the directors that we needed a figure head and Richie was perfect for that. He’s got all the qualifications and he’s a very clever person. He was perfect then to step in and take us forward, he steered us over the line and got us promoted. For me, he should have been given the job here straight away. It took a little time, eventually he did get it and he did a good job for this club.

We do have a momentum going; we had a good season last year. We had a couple of bad runs and a few bad performances here and there, but as a group we did improve. Towards the end we became a more resilient league one side. If we carry on into this season with that same attitude then, I think the momentum is still there. We’ve worked really hard over pre-season, too hard if you ask me. Richie had us in every single day and we’ve been well drilled.

Shirty and Futch will carry it all on and they’ve just taken over with what we have been doing. Nothing has changed; we’ve done what we normally do. Life goes on, without being disrespectful to Richie, he will be forgotten about next week. That’s just what happens. You can’t dwell on the past and you can’t look too far forward. The next game is all that is important.

Twelve months ago we were talking about can we beat Coventry and look what happened. I don’t see why we can’t beat Middlesbrough. As long as we don’t make those silly mistakes like we have done in a couple of pre-season games against championship sides. If you make those mistakes against them, they will punish you. We will give them a game.

We are going into a new season and we are all up for this anyway. We’ve all been waiting for the first game of the season for weeks now. We are all up for it, everyone is fit, we are well organised and we look pretty strong in some games. No matter the gaffer leaving, we are going to be exactly the same motivation wise.

Our job is to impress Peter Shirtliff and Ben Futcher – because at the moment, that who is picking the team.

It’s an odd start to the season with the League Cup first, but it’s still Saturday afternoon at 3 O’clock and we are all up for this one.’

Watch the full video interview with Steven Schumacher over on Shakers Player